Quotes from book

The Uncommon Reader

“You don't put your life into your books, you find it there.”

“It was the kind of library
he had only read about in books.”

“One reads for pleasure… it is not a public duty.”

“Books are not about passing time. They're about other lives. Other worlds. Far from wanting time to pass, one just wishes one had more of it. If one wanted to pass the time one could go to New Zealand.”

“The days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

“A book is a device to ignite the imagination.”

“… Once I start a book I finish it. That was the way one was brought up. Books, bread and butter, mashed potato - one finishes what's on one's plate. That's always been my philosophy.”

“Above literature?' said the Queen. 'Who is above literature? You might as well say one was above humanity.”

“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening wherever she turned and the days weren't long enough for the reading she wanted to do.”

“… she felt about reading what some writers felt about writing: that it was impossible not to do it and that at this late stage of her life she had been chosen to read as others were chosen to write.”

“To read is to withdraw. To make oneself unavailable. One would feel easier about it if the pursuit inself were less… selfish.”

“Reading is untidy, discursive and perpetually inviting.”